SciFi and Fantasy eBook Club discussion

I think this book got left in the lurch - it's scheduled dates are 04/15/2014 to 04/15/2015 - just one day.

Although I could only give the book 3.5 stars in the end, it has many excellent points - especially were the reader picks up clues about the world that the characters can't understand. But some parts annoyed me: too much action to start things off, Swarm capitulating to help Spearpoint too easily, the little girl.

What do others think?

I fixed the book and the book listings on the group front page. Haven't started this one yet - just finished a near future thriller and this one is next on the agenda so I'll have an opinion in a few hours ...

Greg wrote: "I think this book got left in the lurch - it's scheduled dates are 04/15/2014 to 04/15/2015 - just one day..."

That would be a full year actually. ];>

I think it's pretty clear this book was Reynolds's stab at fantasy, and having the science background that he does, he felt compelled to rationalize the world build with a fundamental scientific explanation.

I'm not sure it really worked in that regard, but I still felt it was an entertaining and inventive book. If you don't go into it expecting hard sci-fi and rigorous adherence to physics, but rather expecting creative world creation and a general fantasy tilt, then it works much better.

I gave it a 3 star, which in my rating means it was an entertaining read, but not an essential one. 3.5 would probably be a more accurate rating.

I guess Geoffrey and I can't type. I'm on an iPhone, so maybe saying I can't thumb is more correct.

I'm not sure this novel is a stab at writing a rationalized fantasy. The reader needs to bring scientific knowledge to the text to understand things. For example, the dirigible captain says the airship can fly at x speed and circle the globe in y days: if the reader does the math, he discovers the planet is smaller than Earth. That's a neat twist and pure science.

Of course it does get woowooish with the little girl plot.

Well...maybe fantasy was the wrong term, though there are a lot of fantasy elements in it. Perhaps steampunk would be a better choice of terminology. The whole Tectomancer thing is pretty much straight out of fantasy (at least until it's handwavium-explained).

I just remember thinking...boy there's a lot of non-sci-fi stuff in here that he's hinting has some scientific explanation behind it. And wondering how he was going to pull that off. Which, BTW, he did well enough in the end.

I only just started reading this, and really liked the beginning where he describes the city levels and the recovery of the dead angel.

I have a love/hate with Reynolds. I seem to keep buying his books and then being a bit disappointed, so I'll have to see if this one follows the same pattern.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through, and so far I really like it. For some reason, though, the different levels with different tech made me think of an old book. Was it Savage Pellucidar that had humans at different stages of development (Stone age, Bronze age, etc)? I don't know why I thought of that in connection with this book, but I did. Maybe in general this book gives me a Burroughs vibe.

I liked the 'tectomancer' twist. That was unexpected.